Fatal Strikes

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Summary

This report documents serious violations of international
humanitarian law (the laws of war) by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Lebanon between
July 12 and July 27, 2006, as well as the July 30 attack in Qana.During this period, the IDF killed an
estimated 400 people, the vast majority of them civilians, and that number
climbed to over 500 by the time this report went to print.The Israeli government claims it is taking
all possible measures to minimize civilian harm, but the cases documented here
reveal a systematic failure by the IDF to distinguish between combatants and
civilians.

Since the start of the conflict, Israeli forces have
consistently launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious
military gain but excessive civilian cost.In dozens of attacks, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent
military target.In some cases, the
timing and intensity of the attack, the absence of a military target, as well
as return strikes on rescuers, suggest that Israeli forces deliberately
targeted civilians.

The Israeli government claims that it targets only
Hezbollah, and that fighters from the group are using civilians as human
shields, thereby placing them at risk.Human Rights Watch found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used
civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack.Hezbollah occasionally did store weapons in
or near civilian homes and fighters placed rocket launchers within populated
areas or near U.N. observers, which are serious violations of the laws of war
because they violate the duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid
civilian casualties.However, those
cases do not justify the IDF's extensive use of indiscriminate force which has
cost so many civilian lives.In none of
the cases of civilian deaths documented in this report is there evidence to
suggest that Hezbollah forces or weapons were in or near the area that the IDF
targeted during or just prior to the attack.

By consistently failing to distinguish between combatants and
civilians, Israel
has violated one of the most fundamental tenets of the laws of war: the duty to
carry out attacks on only military targets.The pattern of attacks during the Israeli offensive in Lebanon
suggests that the failures cannot be explained or dismissed as mere accidents;
the extent of the pattern and the seriousness of the consequences indicate the
commission of war crimes.

This report is based on extensive on-the-ground research in Lebanon.Since the start of hostilities, Human Rights
Watch has interviewed victims and witnesses of attacks in one-on-one settings,
conducted on-site inspections (when security allowed), and collected
information from hospitals, humanitarian groups, and government agencies.Human Rights Watch also conducted research in
Israel,
inspecting the IDF's use of weapons and discussing the conduct of forces with
IDF officials.The research was
extensive, but given the ongoing war and the scope of the bombings, Human
Rights Watch does not claim that the findings are comprehensive; further
investigation is required to document the war's complete impact on civilians
and to assess the full scope of the IDF's compliance with and disregard for
international humanitarian law.

While not the focus of this report, Human Rights Watch has
separately and simultaneously documented violations of international
humanitarian law by Hezbollah, including a pattern of attacks that amount to
war crimes.Between July 12, when
Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight, and July 27, the
group launched a reported 1,300 rockets into predominantly civilian areas in Israel, killing
18 civilians and wounding more than 300. Without guidance systems for accurate
targeting, the rockets are inherently indiscriminate when directed toward civilian
areas, especially cities, and thus are serious violations of the requirement of
international humanitarian law that attackers distinguish at all times between
combatants and civilians. Some of these rockets, Human Rights Watch found, are
packed with thousands of metal ball-bearings, which spray more than 100 meters
from the blast and compound the harm to civilians.

This report analyzes a selection of Israeli air and
artillery attacks that together claimed at least 153 civilian lives, or over a
third of the reported Lebanese deaths in the conflict's first two weeks.Of the 153 civilian deaths documented in this
report by name, sixty-three of the victims were children under the age of
eighteen, and thirty-seven of them were under ten.Israeli air strikes also killed many dual
nationals who were vacationing in Lebanon
when the fighting began, including Brazilian, Canadian, German, Kuwaiti, and U.S.
citizens.The full death toll is
certainly higher because medical and recovery teams have been unable to
retrieve many bodies due to ongoing fighting and the dire security situation in
south Lebanon.

The report breaks civilian deaths into two categories:
attacks on civilian homes and attacks on civilian vehicles.In both categories, victims and witnesses interviewed
independently and repeatedly said that neither Hezbollah fighters nor Hezbollah
weapons were present in the area during or just before the Israeli attack took
place.While some individuals, out of
fear or sympathy, may have been unwilling to speak about Hezbollah's military
activity, others were quite open about it.In totality, the consistency, detail, and credibility of testimony from
a broad array of witnesses who did not speak to each other leave no doubt about
the validity of the patterns described in this report.In many cases, witness testimony was
corroborated by reports from international journalists and aid workers.During site visits conducted in Qana, Srifa,
and Tyre, Human Rights Watch saw no evidence that there had been Hezbollah
military activity around the areas targeted by the IDF during or just prior to
the attack: no spent ammunition, abandoned weapons or military equipment,
trenches, or dead or wounded fighters.Moreover, even if Hezbollah had been in a populated area at the time of
an attack, Israel
would still be legally obliged to take all feasible precautions to avoid or
minimize civilian casualties resulting from its targeting of military objects
or personnel.In the cases documented in
this report, however, the IDF consistently tolerated a high level of civilian
casualties for questionable military gain.

In one case, an Israeli air strike on July 13 destroyed the
home of a cleric known to have sympathy for Hezbollah but who was not known to
have taken any active part in hostilities.Even if the IDF considered him a legitimate target (and Human Rights
Watch has no evidence that he was), the strike killed him, his wife, their ten
children, and the family's Sri Lankan maid.

On July 16, an Israeli airplane fired on a civilian home in
the village of Aitaroun, killing eleven members of the
al-Akhrass family, among them seven Canadian-Lebanese dual nationals who were
vacationing in the village when the war began.Human Rights Watch independently interviewed three villagers who
vigorously denied that the family had any connection to Hezbollah.Among the victims were children aged one,
three, five, and seven.

Others civilians came under attack in their cars as they
attempted to flee the fighting in the South.This report alone documents twenty-seven civilian deaths that resulted
from such attacks.The number is surely
higher, but at the time the report went to press, ongoing Israeli attacks on
the roads made it impossible to retrieve all the bodies.

Starting around July 15, the IDF issued warnings to
residents of southern villages to leave, followed by a general warning for all
civilians south of the LitaniRiver, which mostly runs
about 25 kilometers north of the Israel-Lebanon border, to evacuate
immediately.Tens of thousands of
Lebanese fled their homes to the city of Tyre
(itself south of the Litani and thus within the zone Israel
ordered evacuated) or further north to Beirut,
many waving white flags.As they left,
Israeli forces fired on dozens of vehicles with warplanes and artillery.

Two Israeli air strikes are known to have hit humanitarian
aid vehicles.On July 18 the IDF hit a
convoy of the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates, destroying a
vehicle with medicines, vegetable oil, sugar and rice, and killing the
driver.On July 23, Israeli forces hit
two clearly marked Red Cross ambulances in the village of Qana.

As of August 1, tens of thousands of civilians remained in
villages south of the LitaniRiver, despite the
warnings to leave. Some chose to stay, but the vast majority, Human Rights
Watch found, was unable to flee due to destroyed roads, a lack of gasoline,
high taxi fares, sick relatives, or ongoing Israeli attacks.Many of the civilians who remained were
elderly, sick, or poor.

Israel
has justified its attacks on roads by citing the need to clear the transport
routes of Hezbollah fighters moving arms.Again, none of the evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch, independent
media sources, or Israeli official statements indicate that any of the attacks
on vehicles documented in this report resulted in Hezbollah casualties or the
destruction of weapons.Rather, the
attacks killed and wounded civilians who were fleeing their homes, as the IDF
had advised them to do.

In addition to strikes from airplanes, helicopters, and
traditional artillery, Israel
has used artillery-fired cluster munitions against populated areas, causing
civilian casualties. One such attack on the village of Blida
on July 19 killed a sixty-year-old woman and wounded at least twelve civilians,
including seven children.The wide
dispersal pattern of cluster munitions and the high dud rate (ranging from 2 to
14 percent, depending on the type of cluster munition) make the weapons exceedingly
dangerous for civilians and, when used in populated areas, a violation of
international humanitarian law.

Statements from Israeli government officials and military
leaders suggest that, at the very least, the IDF has blurred the distinction
between civilian and combatant, and is willing to strike at targets it
considers even vaguely connected to the latter.At worst, it considers all people in the area of hostilities open to
attack.

On July 17, for example, after IDF strikes on Beirut, the commander of the Israeli Air Force, Eliezer Shkedi,
said, "in the center of Beirut
there is an area which only terrorists enter into."[1]The next day, the IDF deputy chief of staff,
Moshe Kaplinski, when talking about the IDF's destruction of Beirut's Dahia neighborhood, said, "the hits
were devastating, and this area, which was a Hezbollah symbol, became deserted
rubble."[2]

On July 27, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said that
the Israeli air force should flatten villages before ground troops move in to
prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers fighting Hezbollah.Israel
had given civilians ample time to leave southern Lebanon, he claimed, and therefore
anyone remaining should be considered a supporter of Hezbollah."All those now in south Lebanon are
terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah," he said.[3]

International humanitarian law requires effective advance
warnings to the civilian population prior to an attack, when conditions
permit.But those warnings do not way
relieve Israel
from its obligation at all times to distinguish between combatants and
civilians and to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from
harm.In other words, issuing warnings
in no way entitles the Israeli military to treat those civilians who remain in
southern Lebanon
as combatants who are fair game for attack.

In addition to recommendations to the Israeli government and
Hezbollah that they respect international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch
calls on the U.S. government immediately to suspend transfer of all arms that
have been documented or credibly alleged to have been used in violation of
international humanitarian law in Lebanon, as well as funding or support for
such materiel, pending an end to the violations.Human Rights Watch calls upon the Iranian and
Syrian governments to do the same with regards to military assistance to
Hezbollah.

This report does not address Israeli attacks on Lebanon's infrastructure or Beirut's southern suburbs, which is the
subject of ongoing Human Rights Watch research.It also does not address Hezbollah's indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel, which
have been reported on and denounced separately and continues to be the subject
of ongoing Human Rights Watch investigations.In addition, Human Rights Watch continues to investigate allegations
that Hezbollah is shielding its military personnel and materiel by locating
them in civilian homes or areas, and it is deeply concerned by Hezbollah's
placement of certain troops and materiel near civilians, which endangers them
and violates the duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian
casualties.Human Rights Watch uses the occasion of this report to reiterate
Hezbollah's legal duty never to deliberately use civilians to shield military
objects and never to needlessly endanger civilians by conducting military
operations, maintaining troops, or storing weapons in their vicinity.

The armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is governed by
international treaties, as well as the rules of customary international
humanitarian law. Article 3 Common to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 sets forth
minimum standards for all parties to a conflict between a state party such as Israel and a
non-state party such as Hezbollah.Israel has also asserted that it considers
itself to be responding to the actions of the sovereign state of Lebanon, not
just to those of Hezbollah.Any
hostilities between Israeli forces and the forces of Lebanon
would fall within the full Geneva Conventions to which both Lebanon and Israel are parties.In either case, the rules governing bombing,
shelling, and rocket attacks are effectively the same.

Methodology

This report is based primarily on investigations by Human
Rights Watch researchers, who have been in Beirut since the onset of the
conflict and traveled for two days to Lebanon's South. The team focused on
interviewing witnesses and survivors of Israeli strikes inside Lebanon,
gathering detailed testimony from these individuals, and carefully
corroborating and cross-checking their accounts with international aid workers,
international and local journalists, medical professionals, local officials, as
well as information from the IDF.

Security conditions did not permit on-site visits to many of
the villages or other sites where civilian casualties are documented in this
report, but in all cases Human Rights Watch located eyewitnesses to
attacks.All cases for which Human
Rights Watch could not find eyewitnesses, survivors, or other credible sources
of information have been excluded from this report.A parallel team of Human Rights Watch
researchers operated during this same period in northern Israel investigating and reporting on
Hezbollah's attacks on civilians in Israel.That team also contributed to Human Rights
Watch's understanding of IDF operations in Lebanon through on-site observations
and conversations with IDF spokespersons.

In a small minority of cases, Human Rights Watch researchers
in Lebanon could locate
witnesses only in Hezbollah-controlled camps for displaced persons in Beirut.Hezbollah controls an estimated seventy of
the 120 schools currently housing the displaced.On such occasions, Hezbollah officials often
insisted that Human Rights Watch researchers not ask questions about the
location of Hezbollah militants because such information, wherever Hezbollah
might be located, was of military value.These conditions limited Human Rights Watch's ability to make a legal
determination regarding whether the target in question was legitimate.In such cases, researchers sought additional
witnesses outside of Hezbollah's control to investigate the location of
Hezbollah militants in the area at the time of the attack.If such witnesses could not be found, Human
Rights Watch dropped the case.

As noted, in the cases documented in this report, witnesses
consistently told Human Rights Watch that neither Hezbollah fighters nor other
legitimate military targets were in the area that the IDF attacked.However, Human Rights Watch did document
cases in which the IDF hit legitimate military targets, and, with limited
exceptions, witnesses were generally willing to discuss the presence and
activity of Hezbollah.At the sites
visited by Human Rights Watch-Qana, Srifa, Tyre, and the southern suburbs of
Beirut-on-site investigations did not identify any signs of military activity
in the area attacked, such as trenches, destroyed rocket launchers, other
military equipment, or dead or wounded fighters.International and local journalists, rescue
workers, and international observers also did not produce evidence to
contradict the statements of witnesses interviewed for this report.

The researchers also monitored information from public
sources about the attacks, including Israeli government statements. Although
Human Rights Watch's research has been extensive, it is, as noted, not comprehensive.
Further inquiry is required, particularly as access to the affected villages in
South Lebanon improves, and to the extent that Israel ultimately decides to make
its commanders and soldiers involved in the operation available for interviews.

Recommendations

To the Government of Israel

All forces should be immediately ordered to uphold
fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.In particular, they must:

Distinguish at all times between civilians and
combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives, and cease any
deliberate targeting of civilians.

Cease all indiscriminate attacks, in particular
indiscriminate bombardments against cities, towns, villages and other areas in
which civilians are concentrated.

Scrupulously observe the principle of
proportionality.Cease launching any
attack that may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury
to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof that would
be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage
anticipated.

Immediately cease the use of cluster munitions
in Lebanon
until the dud rate can be reduced dramatically. If cluster munitions are
employed, they should never be used in or near populated areas.

Never target humanitarian personnel, convoys and
objects, or peacekeeping personnel, all of whom are entitled to the protections
given to civilians.

Instruct all levels of government to cooperate
with international investigations into violations of international humanitarian
law, including the Commission of Inquiry proposed below.

To the United Nations

Human Rights Watch urges the Secretary-General
of the United Nations to establish an International Commission of Inquiry to
investigate reports of violations of international humanitarian law, including
possible war crimes, in Lebanon
and Israel
and to formulate recommendations with a view to holding accountable those who
violated the law.The Commission of
Inquiry (COI) should be headed by an internationally recognized, independent
expert with direct experience investigating war-time compliance with
international humanitarian law.The
COI's team should include expertise in forensics, ballistics and weaponry,
international humanitarian law, and other relevant disciplines.The funding of the COI should be adequate to
ensure its effective functioning.

Given
the urgency of the situation, the COI should present its interim findings to the Secretary-General as soon as
possible.The Secretary-General should present these findings and
recommendations, as well as the COI's final report, to the Security Council for further consideration and
action.

To the Government of the United
States

Immediately suspend transfers to Israel of arms, ammunition, and other materiel
that have been documented or credibly alleged to have been used in violation of
international humanitarian law in Lebanon, as well as funding or
support for such materiel, pending an end to the violations.

Conduct a full investigation into Israel's use of
U.S.-supplied arms, ammunition, and other materiel in violations of
international humanitarian law.

To the Government of the United Kingdom and other countries through which
weapons, ammunition, or other military materiel may pass in transit to Israel

Do not permit the use of national territory for
the transit or transshipment to Israel
of arms, ammunition, or other materiel that have been documented or credibly
alleged to have been used in violation of international humanitarian law in Lebanon,
pending an end to the violations.[4]

Where they do not already exist, adopt and apply
controls that require licenses for weapons transfers, as well as arms transit
and arms brokering.Make the issuance of
licenses conditional on the ultimate recipient's respect for human rights and
international humanitarian law. Licenses should be denied in cases where the
recipient engages in a pattern of gross abuses of human rights or serious
violations of international humanitarian law or there otherwise is a clear risk
the weapons will be misused in such a way.[5]

To Hezbollah

Cease all indiscriminate rocket attacks
against Israeli cities, towns, villages and other areas in which civilians are
concentrated as well as any deliberate targeting of civilians.

Make all feasible efforts to avoid locating
military objectives within or near densely populated areas and to remove
civilian persons or objects under its control from the vicinity of military
objectives.

Under no circumstance take advantage of the
location of civilians or other persons protected under international law for
the purpose of shielding a military objective from attack or to favor or impede
military operations.

To the Governments of Syria
and Iran

Do not permit transfers to Hezbollah of arms,
ammunition, and other materiel that have been documented or credibly alleged to
have been used in violation of international humanitarian law in Lebanon, as
well as funding or support for such materiel, pending an end to the violations.

Attacks on Civilian Homes

Since July 12, when
Hezbollah launched an attack on Israeli positions initially killing three
Israeli soldiers and capturing two, Israel and Hezbollah have engaged
in intense hostilities.Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes
against targets in Lebanon,
including extensive attacks against Lebanon's infrastructure, private
homes and apartment buildings, as well as vehicles moving on roads.Israeli strikes have been especially heavy in
Shi'a-dominated areas of Lebanon,
considered to be Hezbollah strongholds, including southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and the BeqaaValley.

To date, the chief
cause of civilian deaths from the Israeli campaign is targeted strikes on
civilian homes in villages of Lebanon's
South.There has also been large-scale
destruction of civilian apartment buildings in southern Beirut, though most of the residents of those
buildings had evacuated prior to the attacks.According to the Lebanese Ministry of Social Affairs, the IDF destroyed
or damaged up to 5,000 civilian homes in air strikes during the first two weeks
of the war.[6]As demonstrated by the case studies below, Israel has
caused large-scale civilian casualties by striking civilian homes, with no
apparent military objective either inside the home or in the vicinity.In some cases, warplanes returned to strike
again while residents and neighbors had gathered around the house to remove the
dead and assist the wounded.

Israel claims that it is attacking homes belonging
to Hezbollah members, and that Hezbollah is responsible for putting civilians
at risk by placing their military positions inside or close to civilian
homes.On July 19, for example, the IDF stated
that "Hezbollah terrorists have turned southern Lebanon into a war zone and are
operating near population centers there, using civilians as human shields."[7]On the same day, the Israeli ambassador to
the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, told CNN: "We are trying to minimize hurting
civilians, but when Hezbollah uses civilians as human shields, sometimes civilians
will get hurt."[8]

Human Rights Watch research established that, on some
limited occasions, Hezbollah fighters have attempted to store weapons near
civilian homes and have fired rockets from areas where civilians live.However, such practices do not justify the
IDF's failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians.

On July 15, for example, a group of villagers from Marwahin
left the area in a convoy, in part because Hezbollah was attempting to store
weapons behind their homes, and residents feared a retaliatory IDF strike.[9]Two rockets believed to have been fired from
Israeli helicopters struck a white pick-up and a passenger car in the convoy on
the road between the villages of Chamaa and Biyada, killing twenty-one
civilians (see "Attacks on Fleeing Civilians").A U.N. team trying to retrieve the bodies came under fire from the IDF.[10]While the villagers' flight could be
attributed in part to Hezbollah's unlawful attempt to store weapons in
Marwahin-the main reason for flight was the Israeli warning to evacuate within
two hour-Human Rights Watch found no evidence to suggest that Hezbollah
fighters were near the civilian convoy when it got hit.

Christian villagers fleeing the village of `Ain Ebel have
also complained about Hezbollah tactics that placed them at risk, telling the New York Times
that "Hezbollah came to [our village] to shoot its rockets. They are shooting
from between our houses."[11] `Ain Ebel
was a former stronghold for the Israeli-backed South Lebanese Army (SLA), a
force opposed to Hezbollah. According to an official from `Ain Ebel, some
villagers told him that Hezbollah had fired at Israel from certain positions
close to their houses, although so far Human Rights Watch has heard no reports
of Hezbollah entering any village homes.No villagers have died but a number have been injured (mostly from
broken glass), and Israeli fire had destroyed roughly eighty of 400 houses, he
said.[12]

Human Rights Watch is hardly asserting that all Israeli
strikes have targeted civilians.There
are obviously many cases in which Israeli forces attacked legitimate military
targets, such as rocket launchers and dug-in military positions.However, in the cases documented below, no
apparent military objective existed in the civilian houses that Israel attacked.
Villagers interviewed privately in one-on-one settings stated credibly and
consistently that Hezbollah was not present in their homes or the vicinity when
the attacks took place, and Human Rights Watch found no other evidence to
suggest that Hezbollah had been there.

Killing of Four Brazilian-Lebanese Civilians in Srifa, July 13

On two occasions, the IDF killed civilians in the village
Srifa, located twenty-five kilometers from the Israel-Lebanon border.The first attack on July 13 killed four Brazilian-Lebanese
dual nationals.On July 19, another
strike killed nineteen people (see below).

The first took place at about 4 a.m. on July 13, around the
same time as other air strikes on the villages of Dweir and Baflay (see
below).Fatima Musa, a Srifa resident,
described the strike to Human Rights Watch:

First they hit a school building at night, from Wednesday to
Thursday, starting at around 3:30 to 4 a.m.Then, they hit the house just behind us.We didn't hear the airplanes, we just heard the rocket.We were sleeping and woke up when the house
lit up from the explosions.My son was
shivering with fear.[13]

The air strike hit a home in the Ain neighborhood of Srifa,
demolishing the home and killing the family inside.

According to three witnesses, the four persons killed in the
first strike on Srifa were all Brazilian-Lebanese dual nationals who had come
to Srifa less than one month before to spend their summer vacation in the
village.[14]The witnesses identified the dead as Akil
Merhi, 33;his wife, Ahlam Merhi, 25;
their son, Abd'el Hadi Merhi, 8; and their daughter, Fatima Merhi, 4.Because the family was only vacationing in Lebanon and normally resided in Brazil, it is
unlikely that their adult members were involved in Hezbollah activities. The witnesses interviewed by Human
Rights Watch also denied there was a Hezbollah presence or fighting in the area
at the time of the attack

In a statement, the IDF claimed to have struck "two
Hezbollah bases" in Srifa on that day.[15]

The bodies of the four Merhi family members were covered
with rubble, and firing from Israeli war planes prevented the villagers from
digging them out.According to one
witness:

The first time they tried to get the bodies out, some
villagers went to try and extract them from the rubble, but another rocket
fired on the home.Eventually they were
able to get the bodies out, but that was only about noon.The bodies were buried in the village around 5
p.m.[16]

There was no Hezbollah activity around the home when the
second bomb struck, the villagers said.

Killing of Thirteen Civilians in Dweir, July 13

On Thursday, July 13, at about 4:00 a.m., Israeli warplanes
struck the home of Shi'a cleric Sheikh `Adil Mohammed Akash, killing the cleric
and eleven members of his family. Sheikh Akash was an Iranian-educated cleric
and is believed to have been affiliated with Hezbollah, although there is no
indication that he took part in hostilities or had a commanding role, either of
which might have made him a legitimate military target.

The first missile demolished the two-story home in the village of Dweir,
located halfway between Saida and Tyre,
while a second missile fired minutes later failed to explode.The sheikh and his family had returned to the
home just twenty minutes before the strike, an eyewitness who lived nearby told
Human Rights Watch.[17]The strike killed Sheikh `Adil Mohammed
Akash; his wife, Rabab Yasin, 39; and ten of their children:Mohammed Baker Akash, 18; Mohammed Hassan
Akash, 7; Fatima Akash, 17; `Ali Rida Akash, 12; Ghadir Akash, 10; Zeinab
Akash, 13; Sara Akash, 5; Batul Akash, 4; Nour el-Huda Akash, 2; and Safa'
Akash, 2 months.The family's Sri Lankan
maid, whose name is not known, also died.[18]

There was no evidence of Hezbollah military activity in or
around the home, and the village
of Dweir is too far from
the Israeli border (about 40 kilometers) to serve as an effective launching
site for Hezbollah rockets.

International law permits the targeting of military
commanders in the course of armed conflict, provided that such attacks
otherwise comply with the laws that protect civilians. Political leaders,
however, are civilians; they are not legitimate military targets. The only
exception to this rule is if they assume a military command or participate
directly in military hostilities, which would then render them combatants.

Even if Israel
believed Sheikh Akash was a legitimate military target because of his possible
involvement in Hezbollah military activities (of which Human Rights Watch has
no evidence), Israel
should have taken into account the likely civilian casualties of attacking him
in his home in determining whether the military gain of attacking him there
outweighed the civilian harm.In this
case, the death of at best one possible Hezbollah member cost the lives of
twelve civilians, nine of them children.

Killing of Nine Civilians in Baflay, July 13

On Thursday, July 13, at about 4:30 a.m., an Israeli air
strike demolished the home of 45-year-old Munir Zein, a farmer who also owned
the truck used to collect the garbage of the village
of Baflay, located some ten kilometers
east of the southern port city of Tyre.Villagers interviewed by Human Rights Watch
were adamant that Munir Zein had no connection to Hezbollah and that there was
no Hezbollah military activity or presence in the area.Ahmed Roz, a46-year-old salesman who lived just 150 meters from the Zein home,
recalled what happened:

There was a big air strike between Baflay and
al-Shehabiyye.We could see that attack
from our home and were watching.Suddenly we heard a loud noise and saw a bright flash.Our doors were blown open.All we saw coming from the Zein house was smoke.Then there was a second strike.[19]

The Israeli air strike demolished the entire Zein home,
killing all nine people inside, including three young children and two Kuwaiti
nationals, according to two witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch.Those killed were Munir Zein and his wife
Najla Zein, 45; their children Ali, 21; Wala, 18; Hassan, 12; Fatima, 9; and Hussain,
5.Also killed were Abdullah el-Tahi,
the husband of one of the Zeins' daughters, Huriya, and his father, Heidar
el-Tahi, both Kuwaiti nationals visiting their in-laws at the time of the
attack.Huriya was in Beirut at the time of the attack.The bodies of most of her family members were
recovered, except for that of Munir Zein, which remains buried under the
rubble.[20]

Killing of Twelve Civilians, Zibqine, July 13

On the morning of July 13, Israeli warplanes fired twice at
the two-story home of Na`im Bazi`, the late mayor of the village of Zibqine,
located some five kilometers north of the Israel-Lebanon border.According to a respected Lebanese human
rights activist who personally knew Na`im Bazi` (who died a few years ago),
Bazi` and his family were not affiliated with Hezbollah.[21]
Human Rights Watch also found no evidence of Hezbollah activity in the area of
the home when the attack took place.

Twelve members of the family were reportedly killed in the
air strike, including six children.Among the identified dead are Fatima Na`im Bazi`, about 75; Na`im Wael
Bazi`, 20; Su`ad Nasour Bazi`, age unknown; `Aziz Bazi`, age unknown; Khalud
Muhammed Bazi`, 18; Malak `Ali Bazi`, 16; Hussain Na`im Bazi`, age unknown;
Mariam al-Husseini Bazi`, 45; Amale Na`im Bazi`, age unknown; and Farah
Muhammad Bazi`, age unknown.According
to press reports, the youngest member of the Bazi` family killed in the attack
was seven years old.[22]

Two members of the family survived the air strike and were
taken to the hospital. The bodies of the dead were taken to the morgue in Tyre, where they were
buried during a July 22 mass burial ceremony involving 84 victims of the
Israeli bombing campaign.

Killing of Four Civilians, Including a U.S.-Lebanese National, in Bent
Jbeil, July 15

At 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 15, an Israeli airplane fired
at a three-story civilian home in Bent Jbeil, a large town near Lebanon's border with Israel.The strike collapsed the home, killing
80-year-old Haj Abu Naji Mrouj, and his 40-year-old daughter whose name is
unknown to Human Rights Watch, and trapping their bodies under the rubble.Hashem Kazan, 16, who was wounded in the
second strike while trying to recover the bodies (see below), told Human Rights
Watch that Haj Abu Naji Mrouj had nothing to do with Hezbollah. "Haj Abu Naji
was not Hezbollah; he was an old man who didn't work anymore," he said."The Haj just lived in his house with his
daughter."[23]The bodies of Haj Abu Naji and his daughter
remain buried in the rubble of their demolished home.Another witness denied that there was any
Hezbollah presence at or near the home at the time of the attack.[24]

While villagers were attempting to dig the bodies out of the
rubble, an Israeli warplane fired a second missile at the rubble and the rescuers
at around 1:15 p.m., killing two male civilians, including 30-year-old Bilal
Hreish, a U.S.-Lebanese dual national.Hashem Kazan told Human Rights Watch how he was wounded during the
second attack as he worked to recover the bodies:

There was no Hezbollah at the house when I went there, and
there was no fighting taking place in the village-there was no one but
civilians.The civil defense was there
to help us [recover the bodies].Originally, there were about fifty people at the rubble trying to help,
but then we were only about ten.We were
on the rooftop of the house when we were hit.I didn't hear anything, I just heard the explosion.[25]

Hashem Kazan told Human Rights Watch that at least six were
wounded in the second air strike, including two sons of Haj Abu Naji Mrouj.[26]

Killing of Two Civilians in Houla, July 15

On Saturday July 15, at about 9:30 p.m., an Israeli Apache
helicopter fired into the home of Ibrahim Suleiman, a wage laborer, in the village of Houla,
located on the Israel-Lebanon border 25 kilometers east of Tyre. "Neither he nor his children were
involved in Hezbollah, nor was there any [Hezbollah] resistance in the town at
the time,"said Ibrahim Suleiman's neighbor Ali Rizak.[27]
The attack demolished the Suleiman home, killing his daughter, Salman Suleiman,
17, and his daughter-in-law, Zeinab, 20, the mother of a four-year-old baby
daughter.Zeinab's husband, Ali
Suleiman, and his brother-in-law, Abed, were injured in the strike.[28]

Killing of Eleven Civilians, Including Seven Canadian-Lebanese Nationals,
in Aitaroun, July 16

Between 6 and 7 p.m. on July 16, an Israeli airplane fired
into a civilian home in Aitaroun, located just one kilometer north of the
Israel-Lebanon border, killing eleven members of the Al-Akhrass family, including
seven Canadian-Lebanese dual nationals who were vacationing in the village when
the Israeli offensive began.A woman who
lived three hundred meters away from the al-Akhrass home described the strike
to Human Rights Watch:

For the first two days after the kidnapping of the [Israeli]
soldiers, we heard planes and bombs, but there was no attack on the
village.Starting on the third day, they
started bombing the fields around Aitaroun.We could hear the bombs fall, and they were starting fires in the field.There was a family from Canada; they
had come just a few days before the war.They were in the kitchen hiding when a bomb hit their house.It was around 6 or 7 p.m.We suddenly heard a plane flying low; it
dropped a rocket, and there was a big explosion, with rubble flying in the
air.We were only about 300 meters
away.People ran towards the house to
try to save them, but they only found parts of bodies. When we tried to save
them, a helicopter would appear in the sky and a warplane would fly around.So we got scared and stayed away.We recovered between six and eight bodies,
but were told there may be more, and they were all in pieces.The Sheikh buried them immediately.There were young women among them.[29]

Human Rights Watch obtained the names of eight of the eleven
people killed in the attack: Amira al-Akhrass, 23; her children Saya, 7,
Zeinab, 5, Ahmad, 3, and Salam, 1; their aunt, Haniya al-Akhrass, believed to
have been in her sixties; and two uncles, Mohammed Mahmood al-Akhrass, aged between
70 and 80, and his younger brother, Hassan Mahmood al-Akhrass, about 70.[30]Villagers interviewed by Human Rigths Watch
believe that some of the dead members of the al-Akhrass family are still buried
under the rubble of the home, because they smelled decomposing bodies there.

Three villagers, interviewed separately by Human Rights
Watch, vigorously denied that the al-Akhrass family had any connection with
Hezbollah.They also denied that
Hezbollah was active in the vicinity of the house or the village at the time of
the attack."There was no presence of
the [Hezbollah] resistance inside the village," one witness said. "The
positions of the resistance are around the village, not inside the village."[31]A second witness told Human Rights Watch: "I
don't know why their house was targeted, because there was no resistance
there."[32]A third villager explained that while
Aitaroun is right on the frontlines, Hezbollah was not firing from the village
itself:

Aitaroun is very close to the Israeli border, right on the
line.If there is any sort of invasion
[from Israel],
it will happen there.But I have never
seen a rocket fired from the village; those allegations are incorrect. On the
other hand, if you talk in terms of support for Hezbollah, the entire south
supports Hezbollah.Since 1948, our
villages in the south have been hit by Israeli attacks, so what do you expect?[33]

The political leanings of the civilian population in a given
area or village are irrelevant as far as their civilian status is concerned.To the extent that civilians do not
participate in hostilities, that is, do not commit acts that by their nature or
purpose are likely to cause harm to the personnel and equipment of the enemy,
they continue to benefit from the protection afforded by their civilian
status.Directing an attack against
civilians, regardless of their political sympathies, is a war crime.

The Israeli government expressed its regret over the deaths
and said that "Israel
was fighting Hizbullah [sic] and attacking its targets, and was being as
careful as possible not to hurt innocent civilians."[34]

Killing of Eleven Civilians in Tyre,
July 16

Between 5 and 6 p.m. on July 16, two Israeli air strikes hit
a residential building that housed the civil defense offices in Tyre on its first floor,
collapsing the four top floors of the building.[35]The apartment of Sayyid 'Ali Al-Amin, the
Shi'a mufti for Tyre
and Jabal `Amel, and the offices of former member of parliament Muhammad Abdel
Hamid Beydoun were also in the building. Neither Sayyid Al-Amin nor Mr. Beydoun
is affiliated with Hezbollah, nor were they present in the building at the time
of the attack.The strikes also damaged
three neighboring apartment buildings, eight to ten stories high.

In Lebanon,
the civil defense forces mostly carry out activities such as firefighting and
providing medical and humanitarian assistance during crises.Human Rights Watch has found no evidence that
the civil defense forces have taken part in hostilities between Lebanon and Israel, or that Hezbollah fighters
were in the building or were storing equipment there.

According to two residents of the apartment building
interviewed by Human Rights Watch, the building residents were mostly teachers
and doctors from the nearby hospital.[36]A building resident and the director-general
of the civil defense both told Human Rights Watch that Hezbollah had no
presence in the buildings attacked.[37]

Zakaria `Alamadin, 18, had just left the basement of the
apartment buildings when an Israeli missile hit the building, wounding him.
"Everything just went dark and things were falling on me," he said.[38] Among
those killed in the basement of the building were Zakaria's father, Mohammed
Hussain `Alamadin, a 55-year-old teacher, and Zakaria's 14-year-old brother,
Ali Mohammed `Alamadin.

Mr. `Alamadin, his son `Ali and seven others killed as a
result of the attack were transferred to the Tyre public hospital where they
were buried during a public ceremony at the hospital on July 21: Najib
Shamsuldin, `Ali Shamsuldin, Hussein Muzyid, Haytham Hussein Muzyid, 34; `Alia
Wehbi, 40; Sally Wehbi, 7; and Ayman Daher.[39]A civil defense official in Tyre told Human Rights Watch on August 1 that
two bodies remained trapped in the rubble of the collapsed top floors of the
building, including that of an unidentified woman.[40]When Human Rights Watch visited the civil
defense building that day, the smell of decomposing bodies remained.[41]

Ten staff members of the Lebanese civil defense force and
twenty-five volunteers were inside the civil defense offices at the time of the
attack.[42]According to a civil defense official in Tyre, eight members of
the civil defense were injured in the attack, including the head of the civil
defense center, Abbas Ghorayeb, who was hospitalized in critical condition but
has since recovered.[43]

Civil defense institutions play a key role in the protection
of the civilian population.There is
international consensus that they and their personnel must be "respected and
protected."[44] The same
protections apply to civilians in the course of responding to appeals from the
authorities to perform civil defense functions even though they are not formal
members of civilian civil defense organizations. Objects used for civil defense
purposes may not be destroyed or diverted from their proper use. The
protection to which civil defense organizations and personnel are entitled
shall not cease unless they commit, outside their proper tasks, acts harmful to
the enemy.[45]

Because there is no evidence that the Lebanese civil defense
committed any acts "harmful to the enemy,"[46]
or that hostile acts had taken place from their installations, the attack on
the civil defense building and its personnel constitutes a serious violation of
international humanitarian law. The building was marked with a sign outside
indicating that the civil defense had its offices there.However, a high-ranking civil defense
official told Human Rights Watch that the building was not marked on the roof
with the internationally recognized distinctive sign for civil defense, an
equilateral blue triangle on an orange background.[47]

It is not known
whether Israel
was aware of the protected status of the building at the time of the attack.
Such information would affect the severity of the violation of international
humanitarian law, as it would help determine whether Israel deliberately targeted a
protected facility. The IDF has only stated that it targeted "the headquarters
of the [Hezbollah] organization in Tyre,"
an assertion contradicted by witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch.[48]

Killing of Ten Civilians in Aitaroun, July 17

The night after an air strike that killed eleven members of
the Canadian-Lebanese Al-Akhrass family, warplanes again struck a civilian home
in Aitaroun.A witness who lived just
one hundred meters from this second home told Human Rights Watch what she had
seen. "The day after the first massacre, we were sleeping; it was about 12:45
at night.Some were in the shelter, but
we were in our house," said Manal Hassan Alawiye."Suddenly, we heard a plane flying low.The plane dropped a bomb, and all the windows
in our house were blown out.My fianc
took me down to the shelter, and he went to help the people at the house."[49]

The two-story house that had been hit belonged to Hussain
Neif Awada, the 34-year-old owner of a shoe shop.His brother Musa Neif Awada, 47, had brought
his family to shelter in the stronger basement of Hussain's house.The air strike killed Hussain Awada; his
wife, Jamila; and their children, `Ali, about 12, Hassan, 11, Mahmood, 7, and
two younger daughters whose names were not known to the witnesses.Also killed were Musa Awada and his
two-year-old son.

A witness told Human Rights Watch:

The attack took place at night, so everyone was inside
their homes.I am positive the family
had nothing to do with Hezbollah.To my
knowledge, Hezbollah was not operating in the area, but I can't be 100% sure
because we were sleeping.There is a
road near the house that Hezbollah members could of
course use to move around, but it was late and we were asleep in the shelter.[50]

Manal Hassan Alawiye also said the family had no links with
Hezbollah."Musa Awada is a
schoolteacher, and he had nothing to do with the resistance," she told Human
Rights Watch."He wanted nothing to do
with politics."[51]

Killing of an Estimated Twenty-six Civilians in Srifa, July 19

Following the July 13 attack on Srifa village that killed
four members of a Brazilian-Lebanese family (see above), Israeli warplanes and
Apache helicopters continued to bomb the village and the surrounding fields,
putting the villagers into a state of panic.A villager who had fled from Srifa explained how the heavy Israeli
bombardment effectively trapped people inside the village, and how the village
Sheikh had ordered the terrified civilians to seek refuge in the wealthier "Moscow" neighborhood of
the village, where the multiple-story homes had concrete basements that offered
greater protection:

After the first bombing, villagers started fleeing to
neighboring villages for safety.Israel
saw this from their drones, and they sent Apache helicopters to circle the
village to prevent us from leaving.They
started shelling the area around the village from airplanes.There were also Apache helicopters circling
over the village. Two Apaches would come and leave, and then another two
Apaches would come. The Sheikh of the village told the villagers to hide in
their shelters.The people followed the
advice of the Sheikh, and so they sought shelter in the big houses with
basements used to dry tobacco [in the "Moscow"
neighborhood.][52]

Around 3:30 a.m. on July 19, at least three Israeli
airplanes struck at least thirteen homes in the "Moscow" neighborhood, firing multiple
munitions and collapsing the homes on their basements packed with sheltering
civilians."At 3:30 a.m. the attacks
started," said Qassim Mustafa Nazal, a resident."We suddenly heard bombs, one hit, then two
hits at the same time, overall between 12 to 16 rockets hit the Moscow neighborhood."[53]

As of this writing, the number of victims remains unknown
because rescue workers have been unable to reach the village to recover the
bodies, which remain buried under the rubble, and Israeli warplanes and
helicopter strikes have prevented the local villagers from recovering all of
the bodies themselves.A local resident
coordinating the recovery effort estimated to Human Rights Watch that
approximately twenty-six bodies remained under the rubble as of July 31,[54] but other
residents estimated that as many as forty-two are missing after the attack.[55]Two Human Rights Watch researchers visited
Srifa briefly on July 31, as local residents recovered the heavily decomposed
body of one female victim.The
researchers saw no signs of Hezbollah military activity in the village, such as
weapons, military equipment, or trenches.The researchers did count at least thirteen homes that had completely
collapsed, and relatives of the victims claimed that bodies remained trapped
under many of the homes and that they had received no assistance to recover the
bodies.

From surviving relatives, Human Rights Watch has been able
to obtain the names of sixteen persons believed to have been killed in the
attack (but whose bodies are still not recovered).Among them are eight members of a single
household:Kamil Diab Jaber, a
53-year-old owner of a construction business and a bakery; Mahmoud Jaber, 33;
Ali Kamil Jaber, 30; Ahmed Kamil Jaber, 27; Menehil Najdi, 80; Ali Nazal, 28;
Ali Za'rour, 30; and Bilal Hamoudi, 31.[56]Also believed killed were three people in the
house next to the Jaber family: Abbas Abbas Dakrub, 21; Abbas Dakrub (cousin of
Abbas), 18; and Wasim Ghalib Najdi.[57]At least five civilians are believed to have
died in a third home belonging to Mohammed Qasim Najdi: Ahmed Najdi, 35, who
had just returned to Lebanon
from Russia;
Hassan Qoreim, 22; Ali Najdi, 30; Mohammed Ali Najdi, 35; and Ali Hassan Sabra,
17.[58]

According to a villager who was in the village at the time
of the attack:

There was no Hezbollah in the neighborhood.This neighborhood is known to be partial to
the Communist Party, not Hezbollah.There are no Hezbollah people living there.Hezbollah does not have a need to be in this
neighborhood, because we are 40 kilometers away from Israel, and the neighborhood looks
out over the sea, it is not a strategic place.[59]

Two additional villagers told Human Rights Watch in separate
interviews that Hezbollah had not been present in the neighborhood around the
time of the attack."Except for one
person, who didn't even belong to Hezbollah, no one in that neighborhood knew
how to handle weapons," said Hussain Nazal."He added, "If they hit some houses that belong to Hezbollah we would
understand, but this is not the [Hezbollah] neighborhood."[60]

Human Rights Watch asked the office of the IDF spokesperson
for information about the attack, which was widely reported in the press.The spokesperson responded that, after
consulting with the Israeli Air Force, "on that day at that place we don't have
a report of any air strike."[61]

Killing of Three Civilians in Debbine Marja'youn, July 19

At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 19, Israeli munitions destroyed
the home of Dawood al-Khaled in Debbine Marja'youn (a neighborhood on the
outskirts of the southern town of Marja'youn).
Dawood's sister, who lived next door, told Human Rights Watch that the strike
came from an Israeli Apache helicopter. At the time of the attack, the house
was occupied by Dawood; his wife, Hamida; and their six children: Hoda, 14;
Fatima, 12; `Abla, 10; `Ali, 3; Huweida, 8; and Ahmad, 1. The strike killed
Dawood, his daughter, `Abla, and his son, Ahmad. Hoda and Huweida were gravely
injured. Hamida and the other two children, Fatima and `Ali, were unharmed.
Dawood's sister told Human Rights Watch that he was a farmer and not involved with
Hezbollah. She told Human Rights Watch that Hezbollah was active outside of the
village but not inside, and that, to her knowledge, there were no military
objects next to Dawood's house. A second attack hit the area around the house
later on but injured no one.[62]

Death of One Civilian and Wounding of Twelve by Cluster Munitions in Blida, July 19

In addition to strikes from airplanes, helicopters, and
traditional artillery, Israel
has used artillery-fired cluster munitions against populated areas, causing
civilian casualties.According to
eyewitnesses and survivors of the attack interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Israel fired several artillery-based cluster
munitions at Blida
around 3:00 p.m. on July 19. Three witnesses described how the artillery shells
dropped hundreds of cluster submunitions on the village. They described the
submunitions as smaller projectiles that emerged from their larger shells.
The cluster attack killed sixty-year-old Maryam Ibrahim inside her home. At
least two submunitions from the attack entered the basement that the Ali family
was using as a shelter, wounding twelve people, including seven children. Ahmed
Ali, a 45-year-old taxi driver and head of the family, lost both legs from
injuries caused by the cluster submunitions. Five of his children were wounded:
Mira, 16; Fatima, 12; 'Ali, 10; Aya, 3; and
`Ola, 1. His wife, Akram Ibrahim, 35, and his mother-in-law, `Ola Musa, 80,
were also wounded. Four relatives, all German-Lebanese dual nationals
sheltering with the family, were wounded as well: Mohammed Ibrahim, 45; his
wife Fatima, 40; and their children 'Ali, 16, and Rula, 13.According to Ahmed Ali, "there were no
Hezbollah in our village.There was
fighting in Aitaroun [on the Israeli border southwest of Blida, located about 3-4 kilometers away] at
the time, and we are very close to them.From about two kilometers away from us, Hezbollah was firing rockets,
but the IDF rockets fell on our village."[63]
Akram Ibrahim, one of the wounded family members, told Human Rights Watch:
"There was no resistance in the village and no one firing from the
village.We have nothing to do with the
parties, we are just civilians."[64]

Cluster munitions are weapons, delivered from the air or
ground, that disperse dozens, and often hundreds, of submunitions (often called
"grenades" in surface-delivered weapons and "bomblets" in air-delivered
weapons) over a large area, thereby increasing the radius of destructive effect
over a target.Their wide dispersal area
precludes them from being focused on a particular target unless it is quite
large.

There is no specific international prohibition on the use of
cluster munitions (unlike, for example, blinding lasers or chemical weapons).
However, their use in or near civilian areas violates the international
humanitarian law prohibition on indiscriminate attacks because they cannot be
directed in a way that distinguishes between military targets and
civilians.In addition, cluster bomblets
have a high initial failure rate-the munitions used by Israel in Lebanon have an initial failure
rate of up to 14 percent-which results in numerous unexploded but highly
volatile "duds" scattered about the landscape.These pose similar risks to civilians as antipersonnel landmines.

Killing of Three Civilians, Including Brazilian-Lebanese National, in
Tallousa, July 20

On the afternoon of Thursday, July 20, Israeli warplanes
attacked three civilian homes, including the house of the mayor, in the village of Tallousa,
located some 20 kilometers east of Tyre.According to the villagers, the mayor was not
associated with Hezbollah and had made his money in Africa
before returning to Tallousa.The
villagers said that there was no Hezbollah military activity in the vicinity
when the air strike occurred.[65]

The air strike collapsed the three homes, killing the
mayor's mother, Dahiya Turmus, 70, an eight-year-old boy named Ali Nabih in the
neighboring home, and a Brazilian-Lebanese dual national boy aged between seven
and ten whose name the witness Human Rights Watch interviewed did not know.[66]

Killing of Four U.N. Observers, July 25

Around 7:30 p.m. on July 25, an Israeli precision-guided
missile directly hit the clearly marked and well known observer post of the
U.N's Observer Group Lebanon (OGL) near Khiyam, demolishing a three-story
building at the base and killing four unarmed United Nations Truce Supervision
Organization (UNTSO) observers from Austria, Canada, Finland, and China.

The direct hit came after fourteen Israeli aerial bombs and
artillery shells had fallen close to the post, the United Nations Interim Force
in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said.[67]There was no Hezbollah presence or firing
near the U.N. position during the period of the attack.According to the United Nations, the Force
Commander in south Lebanon,
Gen. Alain Pelligrini, was in "repeated contact with Israeli Army officers
throughout the afternoon, pressing the need to protect that particular U.N.
position from firing."[68]

In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed
shock at the "apparently deliberate targeting" of the "clearly marked U.N.
observer post."He called it a
"coordinated artillery and aerial attack" and urged Israel to conduct an investigation.[69]

Israel
expressed "deep regret" over the incident and rejected allegations that it had
targeted the U.N. post.[70]Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised to
conduct a thorough investigation."It's
inconceivable for the U.N. to define an error as an apparently deliberate
action," he said.[71]Secretary-General Annan accepted the Israeli
government's assurance that the attack was not deliberate but regretted that Israel
would not allow the U.N. to participate in the investigation.[72]

This was the first deadly attack on U.N. observers in Southern Lebanon during the current conflict, but Israeli
forces have struck at or near other clearly marked U.N. positions since the
beginning of the fighting.Hezbollah has
occasionally fired at Israeli targets from near U.N. positions, but in many
cases Israeli fire has struck U.N. posts in the absence of any Hezbollah presence.

On July 24, four Ghanaian UNIFIL observers were lightly
injured when an Israeli tank shell fell inside their U.N. post at Rmaish, one
of six incidents of IDF fire on or close to U.N. positions recorded that day.[73] On July
16, UNIFIL recorded seventeen instances of IDF fire on U.N. observer posts,
including two direct hits inside UNIFIL observer posts, and an Indian
peacekeeper was seriously wounded by an IDF tank shell fired inside a U.N.
post.[74]UNIFIL's summary of attacks on its positions
on July 19 gives a troubling overview of just how often Israeli shells have
landed on their positions, as well as the actions of Hezbollah fighters that
endanger UNIFIL personnel:

There were 31 incidents of firing close to UN positions
during the past 24 hours, with three positions suffering direct hits from the
Israeli side. Ten artillery shells impacted inside the UN position of the
Ghanaian battalion on the coast of Ras Naquora,
causing extensive damage. Four artillery shells impacted inside the patrol base
of the Observer Group Lebanon in the Marun el Ras area, including three direct
impacts on the building which caused extensive damage and cut electricity and
communication connections.At the time
of the shelling, there were 36 civilians inside the position, most of whom were
women and children from the village
of Marun el Ras. There
were no casualties. One artillery shell impacted inside the UNIFIL Headquarters
compound in Naqoura, causing extensive damage and danger to the UNIFIL hospital
where the doctors were operating at the time. Splinters of artillery shells
also damaged the boundary wall of the Naqoura camp. Extensive shelling damage
was reported in the Ghanaian battalion position south of Alma Ash Shab.
Hezbollah firing was also reported from the immediate vicinity of UN positions
in the Naqoura and Marun el Ras areas at the time of the incidents.[75]

On July 17, a UNIFIL medical team came under IDF fire while
trying to retrieve the bodies of sixteen civilians killed by an Israeli strike
on the road between al-Bayyadah and Sharma as they fled the village of Marwahin.[76]On July 16, UNIFIL recorded seventeen
instances of IDF fire close to U.N. observer posts, and two direct hits inside
UNIFIL observer posts.An Indian
peacekeeper was seriously wounded at that time by shrapnel from Israeli tank
fire.[77]Even if Hezbollah was in the area of the U.N.
during these attacks, the IDF apparently did not take adequate care to avoid
harm to U.N. personnel.

Peacekeeping forces are not parties to a conflict, even if
they are usually professional soldiers.As long as they do not take part in hostilities, they are entitled to
the same protection from attack afforded to civilians. Under customary law,
directing attacks against peacekeepers or objects involved in a peacekeeping
operation, is prohibited and constitutes a war crime.[78]Attacking from next to or near peacekeepers
in order to seek immunity from attack is also a war crime.At the very least, stationing military forces
or materiel near a U.N. base violates the duty to take all feasible precautions
to avoid harm to noncombatants.[79]

Killing of At Least 28 Civilians in Qana, July 30

Around 1 a.m. on July 30, Israeli warplanes fired missiles
at the village of
Qana. Among the homes
struck was a three-story building in which sixty-three members of two extended
families had sought shelter. The home collapsed and killed at least
twenty-eight people.Sixteen children
are among the dead.

Initial reports after the attack put the death toll at
fifty-four, which was based on a register of sixty-three persons who had sought
shelter in the building that was struck, and the rescue teams' ability to
locate only nine survivors. Human Rights Watch learned after a visit to Qana
that at least twenty-two people escaped the basement, and twenty-eight are
confirmed dead.The fate of the
remaining thirteen people who hid in the basement is unknown, and village
representatives believe they remain buried in the debris.

The civilians from the two families had sought shelter in
the house because it was one of the larger buildings in the area and had a
reinforced basement, according to the deputy mayor of the town, Dr. Issam
Matuni.[80]
According to Muhammed Mahmoud Shalhoub, a 61-year-old farmer who was in the
basement during the attack, sixty-three members of the Shalhoub and Hashim
families went to hide in three ground-floor rooms of the three-story building
when the first missile landed in the village around 6 p.m. on July 29, he
said.He explained how, around 1 a.m. on
July 30, after heavy bombing in the village, an Israeli missile struck the
ground floor of the home:

It felt like someone lifted the house. The ground floor of
the house is 2.5 meters high. When the first strike hit, it hit below us and
the whole house lifted, the rocket hit under the house. I was sitting by the
door-it got very dusty and smoky -and we were all in shock. I was not injured
and found myself [thrown] outside. There was a lot of screaming inside. When I
tried to go back in I couldn't see because of the smoke. I started pushing
people out, whomever I could find.

Five minutes later, another air strike came and hit the
other side of the building, behind us. After the second strike, we could barely
breathe and we couldn't see anything. There were three rooms in the house where
people were hiding [on the ground floor]. After the first strike, a lot of
earth was pushed up into the rooms. We only managed to find some people in the
first room.[81]

Shalhoub vigorously denied that any Hezbollah fighters were
present in or around the home when the attack took place. All four roads to
Qana village had been cut by Israeli bombs, he said, which would have made it
difficult if not impossible for Hezbollah to move rocket launchers into the
village.

"If they [the IDF] really saw the rocket launcher, where did
it go?" Shalhoub said. "We showed Israel our dead, why don't the
Israelis show us the rocket launchers?"

Ghazi `Aydaji, another Qana villager, who rushed to the
house when it was hit at 1 a.m., gave an account consistent with Shalhoub's. He
and others removed a number of people from the building after the first strike,
he said, but they could remove no one else after the second strike hit five
minutes later. "If Hezbollah was firing near the house, would a family of over
50 people just sit there?" he said to Human Rights Watch.[82]

Human Rights Watch researchers visited Qana on July 31, the
day after the attack, and did not find any destroyed military equipment in or
near the home. None of the dozens of international journalists, rescue workers,
and international observers who visited Qana on July 30 and 31 reported seeing
any evidence of Hezbollah military presence in or around the home around the
time that it was hit.Rescue workers
recovered no bodies of apparent Hezbollah fighters from in or near the
building.

After the incident, Israeli government expressed regret over
the civilian deaths and said it would conduct an investigation.Various officials said that Hezbollah
fighters were to blame for firing rockets near the building, and the IDF had
warned civilians to leave.[83]

An unnamed senior Israeli air force commander said the
military hit the building with a precision-guided bomb because Hezbollah had
fired rockets from the area.When asked
how the military knew about the rockets but not the presence of civilians in
the building, the commander said the IDF was "capable of detecting missile
launches because they are very dynamic," while the civilians were not seen
because they had been hiding in the building for some days.[84]His opinion contradicts the testimony of
Muhammed Mahmoud Shalhoub, above, who said the families went into the house
when the aerial attack began around 6 p.m. on July 29.

On August 1, one of Israel's top military
correspondents, reported in the Israeli daily Haaretz that, while the Israeli Air Force investigation into the
incident was ongoing, "questions have been raised over military accounts of the
incident." He elaborated that the IDF had changed its original story and that
"it now appears that the military had no information on rockets launched from
the site of the building, or the presence of Hezbollah men at the time."[85]

As of August 2, the IDF had not publicized any conclusions
from its internal military probe and Human Rights Watch continues to call for
an international investigation into the incident.

Attacks on Fleeing Civilians

Israel's military operations between July 12 and July 27 trapped hundreds of
thousands of civilians in southern Lebanese villages, including tens of
thousands of dual nationals and foreigners who were vacationing in Lebanon at the
time.The roads in many parts of
southern Lebanon
became too dangerous to travel, with daily strikes on civilian vehicles trying
to flee.

Around July 15, the
Israeli army began ordering villagers from the south to evacuate immediately,
dropping leaflets, using speaker systems, making radio broadcasts, and even
sending messages in Arabic on mobile phones.On the morning of July 15, for example, an Arabic speaker from the
Israeli side of the border used a loudspeaker to tell the villagers of Marwahin
to leave their homes within two hours (twenty-one of the villagers were killed
that same day when an Israeli weapon struck their car, as discussed below).[86]Over the following days, Israeli officials
also called many village leaders on their mobile phones with a recorded
message, ordering them to leave their villages immediately and to head north of
the LitaniRiver.The message warned them not to travel on motorcycles, vans, or trucks.[87]On July 28, Israel again ordered civilians to
"vacate their homes and move northwards" within hours, stating that "any
vehicle traveling in this area after 10 a.m. and any person who chooses not to
follow this warning is putting his and his family's life at risk."[88]

As documented below,
the Israeli military did not follow its orders to evacuate with the creation of
safe passage routes, and on a daily basis Israeli warplanes and helicopters
struck civilians in cars who were trying to flee, many with white flags out the
windows, a widely accepted sign of civilian status. In two cases in this
report, Israeli munitions struck humanitarian convoys and ambulances as they
traveled the roads.On some days,
Israeli war planes hit dozens of civilian cars, showing a clear pattern of
failing to distinguish between civilian and military objects.

As a result of the
destruction of most main roads in the south, fleeing civilians had to wind
their way through narrow secondary roads, facing the constant danger of aerial
attack.Taxi fares skyrocketed, often to
several hundred dollars per person, or $1,000 per vehicle.The roads became so treacherous that corpses
were left in vehicles struck by the IDF, because recovery teams could not reach
the site.An exhausted man from
Aitaroun, on the Israeli border, recounted his treacherous journey to Human Rights
Watch soon after his arrival in Beirut:

We had two vans for four families, eighteen people in
all.The journey was very dangerous,
with airplanes constantly in the sky.The main road is cut, so we had to go on little side roads or off the
road.It took seven hours to Beirut.Just before we reached Tyre, the planes hit a car in front of us, it
was still burning when we got there, a civilian car.

We saw a total of thirteen cars along the way that had
been bombed, often with civilians in them who had died.We saw the dead women and children, and their
clothes and mattresses in the car.There were four cars with bodies still in
them, the smell-you could smell them from kilometers away.We had to close the windows because of the
smell.[89]

Neighbors of mine left with a van and two cars, and I
went with them.We first stopped at Bent
Jbeil at the hospital because there was a plane in the air.When we started again, the plane came and hit
the road in front and behind us, just ten meters away from us, with bombs.But we just kept driving.We were flying white flags.Along the way, we saw the dead still inside
the cars.I remember well when we
approached es-Soultaniye, there was a Mercedes 300 overturned with dead people
inside, we wanted to stop but the driver said we would be hit.There were men, women and children, I
remember seeing two dead children.Along
the way, we met an old woman who was crying by the side of the road because
no-one wanted to take her, so we took her with us.There was lots of destruction, all of the gas
stations were bombed and we drove as fast as we could. It only got better when
we crossed the LitaniRiver.[90]

Israel
at times gave assurances to officials at UNIFIL that civilian cars traveling
north on the main roads would not be attacked.[91]However, as documented in a number of
examples below, Israel
repeatedly attacked both individual vehicles and entire convoys of civilians
who heeded the Israeli warnings to abandon their villages. The attacks on
civilian vehicles were so fierce that, according to the Lebanese Red Cross, one
ambulance driver witnessed three separate attacks while driving from Tebnine to
Tyre with wounded civilans: first he witnessed the car in front of the
ambulance get hit and fall into a ravine near Kafra; then a van got hit in
Siddiquine, the blast of the explosion throwing the car into the air and
hitting the ambulance on its side; and then a motorcycle got hit on the road
near Hanaouay.[92]

Although Israeli officials are no doubt aware of the
civilian casualties that their bombing of vehicles has caused, such attacks
continued apace as this report went to print.At best, the continued attacks on fleeing civilians show reckless
disregard by Israel
for its obligation to distinguish between civilian and military objects, and a
complete failure to take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian deaths.At worst, Israel
is deliberately targeting civilian vehicles as part of the price that must be
paid to stop all traffic in parts of Lebanon.Either way, Israel is flagrantly violating its
obligations under international humanitarian law, and its widespread attacks on
civilian vehicles are war crimes.

Killing of Twenty-one Civilians Fleeing Marwahin, July 15

On July 15, an Israeli strike on a convoy of civilians
fleeing from the Lebanese border village
of Marwahin killed
twenty-one people, including fourteen children.Many villagers fled after the IDF warned them to evacuate ahead of a
threatened attack.In addition, a
relative of one of the victims said, Hezbollah had stored weapons in the
village, and the residents feared a retaliatory IDF attack.[93]The villagers of Marwahin are Sunni and have
long-standing tensions with the Shi'a Hezbollah organization.

A witness explained to Human Rights Watch that some of the
villagers first sought refuge at a nearby UNIFIL position located 1.5
kilometers from the village, explaining that they had been ordered to evacuate
by the IDF:

I was in phone contact with my relatives in the
village.Around 8:30-9:00 a.m. on that
day, my relatives called to say that the Israelis had warned they should
evacuate in two hours.The Israelis had
spoken on loudspeakers in Arabic from across the border, which is nearby.My relatives said they would go to the UNIFIL
post beside the village.They went to
the outpost and stayed there for two hours, but after two hours UNIFIL said
they had orders not to let them in.[94]

UNIFIL contacted the IDF liaison officer and the Lebanese
army, but was unable to confirm the evacuation order, so the peacekeepers told
the villagers to return to the village.[95]

At 11 a.m., a group of villagers left Marwahin in a convoy
of vehicles, on the single main road out of the village. On the way, between
the villages of Chamaa and Biyada, two weapons believed to have been fired from
Israeli helicopters struck a white pick-up and a passenger car in the
convoy.A photographer for an
international news agency arrived at the scene two hours after the attack. He
told Human Rights Watch that he found a white pick-up truck and a passenger car
completely destroyed, and counted sixteen bodies at the scene, including many
children.He did not see any armed
persons among the bodies.[96]UNIFIL retrieved sixteen bodies from the
scene, and stated that their medical teams came under fire during the rescue
operation.[97]A total of twenty-one people died during the
attack, based on a list of names provided to Human Rights Watch by the
relatives,[98] and on
the number of bodies ultimately received at the Tyre Government hospital.[99]

Killing of Two and Wounding of Four Fleeing Mansouri, July 23

The Srour family who resides in Germany
was vacationing in the seaside village
of Mansouri, 10 miles south of Tyre, having arrived two days before the fighting in Lebanon
began.[100]On July 23, the family attempted to travel in
a three-car convoy to Tyre, waving white flags,
to evacuate to Germany.At about 10:30 a.m., an Israeli weapon struck
their vehicle about four kilometers south of Tyre,
near the village
of Maaliye.Darwish Mudaihli, the driver of the car, died
instantly, as did his brother-in-law, Mohammed Srour. The car caught on fire
with the bodies of Darwish Mudaihli and Mohammed Srour inside.

Mohammed Srour's children, Ahmed, 15; Ali, 13; Mahmoud, 8;
and eight-month-old Mariam were severely burned during the attack.There was no sign of Hezbollah military
activity or weapons in the vicinity, relatives of the victims said, and no one
in the family had connections to Hezbollah.

Wounding of Nine Civilians Fleeing Mansouri, July 23

Shortly after the attack on the Srour family, an Israeli
Apache helicopter hit a second civilian convoy in the area.Zein Zabad, a forty-five-year-old fruit
farmer, had also driven up from Mansouri, attempting to evacuate his wife and
four children.On the way, the family
picked up a man who had been wounded when an air strike hit his car in Qlaile,
and two more wounded people in Maaliye (the same area as the Srour attack), who
were hit by an air strike while riding a motorcycle.Ali Jafar, a twenty-one-year-old day laborer
who was injured in that helicopter strike on his motorcycle, told Human Rights
Watch:

When I was hit, there was nothing around, no resistance
[Hezbollah].I was driving in shorts
with my bag over my back, looking like a civilian. I was driving the
motorcycle and suddenly it just melted in my hands.There was a rocket from a helicopter. I
stopped a Range Rover to take us away, he was from our village.[101]

A munition fired from an Israeli Apache helicopter struck
Zein Zabad's car just forty meters from the NajemHospital,
wounding all nine persons inside.[102]The attack on the Zabad family took place
within sight of the Najem hospital, and there is no evidence of Hezbollah
military activity in the vicinity of the hospital at the time of the attack.

Killing of Three Civilians and Wounding of Fourteen Fleeing Kafra, July 23

Heavy Israeli bombardments in Kafra had trapped fifty
members of the extended Shaita family in a single home since the beginning of
the war.Running out of food, the family
decided to leave the village after hearing the evacuation orders from the
IDF.On July 21, the family contacted
the Red Cross for assistance with evacuation, but the Red Cross was unable to
reach the village. On July 22, thirty-two family members, including most of the
children present in the house, packed into a jeep and two cars, leaving
seventeen family members behind without transportation.The first convoy made it safely to Tyre.

On July 23, the remaining family members convinced a taxi
driver to take them to Tyre
in a van, paying $1,000 for the drive. The family waved a large white flag
outside the van, and many of the family members were holding smaller white
cloths, to indicate their civilian status.[103]

As the van left Kafra, it was hit by an Israeli strike.Musbah Shaita, a member of the family who was
sitting next to the driver but survived, told Human Rights Watch: "I heard a
noise like a blown tire, and the van started swerving.I told the driver to slow down the car, and
he said, 'we've been hit!' The van
stopped, and the driver and I got out.As the driver was calling on me to help get the wounded out, a second
missile hit the car."[104]

Three persons died in the strike: Nazira Shaita, about 70;
her son Mohammed Amin Shaita, 53; and the family's Syrian janitor, Zakwan
[family name unknown], in his mid-forties.Their bodies remained in the vehicle, because recovery teams could not
reach the area for days after the incident.The fourteen other family members were wounded, many of them
severely.

According to Musbhah Shaita, "when we were hit, there was no
one around-no resistance [Hezbollah], nothing.The only person we saw on the road before was a wounded driver by the
side of the road, asking for help."[105]

Killing of One Civilian Traveling to Buy Food, Supplies and Medication,
July 24

In the morning of Monday, July 24, Hassan Ibrahim Al-Sayyid,
a 26-year-old man from the village
of Beit Leef, was killed
when an Israeli airplane fired on him while he drove his motorcycle. Hassan's
sister told Human Rights Watch that Hassan had left his village to buy food,
candles and medication from a neighboring village for his brother, who is
receiving dialysis treatment. The weapon hit Hassan's motorbike on the road
between Kafra and Siddiquine. According to his sister, Hassan was not a member
of Hezbollah, and was on his way to get supplies for his relatives. The corpse
was transferred to Tyre's
public hospital.[106]

Wounding of Six Ambulance Drivers and Three Patients, July 23

On July 23, at 11:15 p.m., Israeli warplanes struck two
clearly marked Red Cross ambulances in the village of Qana.The ambulances, which had Red Cross flags
illuminated by a spot light mounted on the ambulance, were transferring three
wounded Lebanese civilians from one ambulance to the other when the planes
struck.A weapon directly hit one
ambulance, and a second attack struck the second ambulance a few minutes
later.All six of the Red Cross workers
were injured during the attack, and the three patients they were treating
suffered additional injuries.One of the
patients, a middle-aged man, lost his leg in the ambulance strike, while his
elderly mother was partially paralyzed.The third patient, a young boy, received multiple shrapnel wounds to the
head.[107]

Making medical or religious personnel, medical units or
medical transports the object of attack is a war crime.[108]

Those Left Behind

While some villagers residing south of the Litani River have
chosen to remain in their villages-because they provide essential civil
services or for other reasons-others are unable to flee because they have
family members who are elderly or infirm, because the family lacks the means to
pay exorbitant taxi fares, or because it fears the above-described dangers of
Israeli attacks on the roads. As a result, tens of thousands of civilians
remain trapped in their villages, most hiding in basements, mosques or
makeshift shelters, with depleted supplies of food, water, medicine and basic
supplies.

At the same time, Israeli air strikes have hit humanitarian
aid vehicles trying to service southern villages in need.On July 18, the IDF hit a convoy of the Red
Crescent Society of the United
Arab Emirates, destroying a vehicle carrying
medicines, vegetable oil, sugar and rice, and killing the driver.On July 23, another strike hit two clearly
marked Red Cross ambulances in the village
of Qana. Due to the
continuing air attacks on roads and vehicles, humanitarian agencies have had
difficulty reaching the populations in need. At the time of writing, Israel has refused to guarantee secure safe
passage for many humanitarian convoys south of Tyre, with limited exceptions.[109]

Unable to flee or access humanitarian relief, civilians
remaining in the south have been cut off from food, medical care and other
necessities. Humanitarian convoys are largely unable to reach wounded persons
or evacuate civilians from areas of active conflict. As the ICRC said on
July 28:

In the south of the country, and particularly the
villages along the border with Israel,
the effects of military operations are rapidly making life unbearably dangerous
for the remaining civilians trapped by the fighting. In addition, resources and
access to water and basic services are very limited. Medical evacuations and
aid operations are fraught with difficulty and cannot meet the needs.[110]

The Applicable Law

Since July 12, 2006, Israel
and Hezbollah have engaged in consistent and intense hostilities in which
civilians in Lebanon and Israel
have overwhelmingly been the victims. International humanitarian law governs
the way in which the parties to an armed conflict should conduct themselves in
the course of the hostilities.International humanitarian law is primarily designed to protect
civilians and other noncombatants from the hazards of armed conflict.
International humanitarian law does not address the legitimacy of the
belligerents' reasons for having taken up arms or resorting to war.

The armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is governed by
international treaties, as well as by the rules of customary international
humanitarian law. Customary rules are based on established state practice and
bind all parties to an armed conflict, whether they are state actors or
non-state armed groups. Article 3 Common to the Geneva Conventions of
1949, to which Israel is a
party, sets forth minimum standards for all parties to a conflict between a
state party such as Israel
and a non-state party such as Hezbollah.[111]However, Israel
has asserted on several occasions since hostilities began that it considers
itself to be responding to the actions of the sovereign state of Lebanon,
not just to those of Hezbollah.It has
also made allegations about the participation of Iran
and Syria.

The ICRC Commentary notes
that the determination of the existence of an armed conflict between states in
which the Conventions apply does not depend on a formal declaration of war or
recognition of a state of hostilities.Rather, the factual existence of armed conflict between two states party
automatically brings the Conventions into operation.Thus any hostilities between Israeli forces
and the forces of Lebanon
would fall within the full Geneva Conventions.

That said, for the purpose of assessing the lawfulness of
attacks by aerial bombardment, artillery shelling or rocket attack, the
requirements of the two sets of rules are essentially the same.Many of these rules are codified in the first
additional protocol to the Geneva Conventions, known formally as the Protocol relating to the Protection of
Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I).Although Lebanon
and Syria have ratified
Protocol I, Israel and Iran
have not.

However, many, if not most, of the protocol's provisions are
considered reflective of customary international law.This is particularly true for the norms
relating to the conduct of hostilities relevant to this analysis. As a result,
they bind all parties to the conflict.

Many issues of international humanitarian law have arisen
during fierce combat in southern Lebanon and in relation to the
bombardment of populated areas by the Israeli Air Force.Most relevant to this report are questions
related to the principle of distinction (issues related to precautions to be
taken in attack as well as proportionality and indiscriminateness of the
attacks), the protected status of relief personnel and personnel involved in
peacekeeping operations, and the duty of both sides of a conflict to take all
feasible precautions to protect the civilian population and civilian objects
under their control against the effects of attacks.In this respect the parties must, to the
extent feasible, avoid locating military objectives within or near densely
populated areas and remove civilian persons and objects under their control
from the vicinity of military objectives.In particular, the parties must never use the presence of protected
persons with the intent of rendering certain points, areas, or military
personnel immune from military operations.The use of human shields is a war crime.

Two fundamental tenets of international humanitarian law are
those of "civilian immunity" and the principle of "distinction."[112]They impose a duty, at all times during the
conflict, to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and to target only
the former.

It is forbidden in any circumstance to carry out direct
attacks against civilians; to do so intentionally is a war crime. The parties
to a conflict must also refrain from threats or acts of violence the primary
purpose of which is to terrorize the civilian population. [113]
Also prohibited are "attacks against the civilian population or civilians by
way of reprisals."[114]

Apart from the prohibition on direct attacks against
civilians and civilian objects, international humanitarian law prohibits
indiscriminate attacks as a matter of both treaty and customary law.[115]Indiscriminate attacks are those that are not
directed against a military objective, those that employ a method or means of
combat that cannot be directed at a specific military objective, or those that
employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as
required by international humanitarian law.In each such case, these attacks are of a nature to strike military
objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.[116]

The "means" of combat refers generally to the weapons used
while the term "method" refers to the way in which such weapons are used.

A corollary of the principle of distinction is the prohibition
of area bombardment. Any attack, whether by aerial bombardment or other means,
that treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and
distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area
containing a similar concentration of civilians and civilian objects, is
regarded as an indiscriminate attack and prohibited.[117]

Similarly, if a combatant launches an attack without
attempting to aim properly at a military target, or in such a way as to hit
civilians without regard to the likely extent of death or injury, it would
amount to an indiscriminate attack.

A deliberately indiscriminate attack that causes incidental
death or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects that is clearly
excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage
anticipated from the attack is a war crime.[118]

International humanitarian law requires that the parties to
a conflict take constant care during military operations to spare the civilian
population and to take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize the
incidental loss of civilian life, as well as injury to civilians and damage to
civilian objects.[119]In its authoritative Commentary on
Protocol I, the ICRC explains that the requirement to take all "feasible"
precautions means, among other things, that the person launching an attack is
required to take the steps needed to identify the target as a legitimate
military objective "in good time to spare the population as far as possible."[120]

The parties to a conflict must always take precautions in
identifying targets and planning or carrying out an attack. As part of the
identification process, they must do everything feasible to verify that the
chosen targets are military objectives; that is, that they are legitimately
subject to attack. [121] If there
are doubts about whether a potential target is of a civilian or military
character, the assessment must be particularly scrupulous so as to dispel, to
the maximum extent possible, any doubts about the civilian character of the
person or object.Military objects are
those which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective
contribution to military action and whose partial or total destruction, capture
or neutralization offers a "definite military advantage."[122]However, the warring parties must do everything feasible to
cancel or suspend an attack if it becomes apparent that the target is not a
military objective.The same applies if
the attack may be expected to cause excessive collateral damage.[123]

Humanitarian law also determines that if the attacker has a
choice between more than one military objective, each of which could yield
similar military advantage, the objective selected must be the one that is
expected to cause the least danger to civilians and civilian objects.[124]

In general it is prohibited to direct attacks against what
are by their nature civilian objects, such as homes and apartments, places of
worship, hospitals, schools or cultural monuments, unless they are being used
for military purposes.

The mere fact that an object has civilian uses does not
necessarily render it immune from attack. It can be targeted if it makes an
"effective" contribution to the enemy's military activities, and if its
destruction, capture or neutralization offers a "definite military advantage"
to the attacking side in the circumstances prevailing at the time.

However, with regard to such "dual use" objects, combatants
must choose a means of attack that will avoid or minimize harm to civilians and
damage to civilian objects. In particular, the attacker should take all
feasible measures to cancel or suspend an attack if it becomes apparent that
the expected civilian casualties would outweigh the importance of the military
objective.This principle of customary
law is codified in article 57 of Protocol 1.[125]

The ICRC Commentary on article 57 sets out a series
of factors that must be taken into account in applying the principle of
proportionality to the incidental effects of an attack on civilian persons and
objects:

The danger incurred by the civilian population and
civilian objects depends on various factors: their location (possibly within or
in the vicinity of a military objective), the terrain (landslides, floods
etc.), accuracy of the weapons used (greater or lesser dispersion, depending on
the trajectory, the range, the ammunition used etc.), technical skill of the
combatants (random dropping of bombs when unable to hit the intended target).[126]

Casualties that are a consequence of accidents, as in situations
in which civilians are within military installations, may be considered
incidental to an attack on a military objective-so called "collateral
damage"-but care must still have been shown to identify the presence of
civilians and to avoid or minimize the risk to them. As expressed in the ICRC Commentary,
"the golden rule to be followed" when making determinations about the
proportionality of an attack is "the duty to spare civilians and civilian
objects in the conduct of military operations." Even when a target is serving a
military purpose, precautions must always be taken to protect civilians.
Warring parties must also take all feasible precautions to minimize harm
to civilians and civilian objects and to refrain from attacks that would disproportionately
harm the civilian population or fail to discriminate between combatants and
civilians.

Violations of the norms established above, when serious,
constitute war crimes.Conduct
considered to be a war crime under customary law has been enshrined in the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court.That codification includes the so-called "grave breaches" to the Geneva
Conventions and other serious violations of international humanitarian law as
well as serious violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions.

Of particular concern in the present conflict are the
following acts that constitute war crimes:

Making the civilian population or individual
civilians not taking direct part in hostilities the object of attack.

Making civilian objects, that is, objects that
are not military objectives, the object of attack.

Attacking personnel or objects involved in a
humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission.

Causing incidental loss of civilian life, injury
to civilians or damage to civilian objects which would be clearly excessive in
relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

Deliberately using civilians and civilian
objects to shield troops and materiel from attack.

Acknowledgements

This report is based on research conducted in Beirut, Qana, Srifa, and Tyre,
Lebanon, from July 12 to
August 1, 2006, by Peter Bouckaert,
emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, and Nadim Houry, Lebanon
and Syria
researcher in the Middle East Division of Human Rights Watch.The report was written by Peter Bouckaert and Nadim
Houry.Lucy Mair,
researcher for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the Middle
East Division of Human Rights Watch, and Jonathan Fox, consultant to Human
Rights Watch, contributed additional research from northern Israel and contacts
with the Israel Defense Forces.Fred Abrahams, senior emergencies researcher at
Human Rights Watch, coordinated the research effort and did additional research
from New York.

The report was edited by Sarah Leah Whitson, executive
director of the Middle East and North Africa
division of Human Rights Watch, Wilder Tayler,
legal and policy director at Human Rights Watch, Iain
Levine, program director of Human Rights Watch, and Kenneth
Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.Steve Goose, executive
director of the arms division at Human Rights Watch, and other members of the
arms division staff provided input and analysis on issues related to arms.Human Rights Watch associates Assef Ashraf, Thodleen Desssources, Tarek Radwan,
and Leeam Azulay-Yagev greatly
assisted with research and administrative support.

Human Rights Watch thanks the Lebanese human rights
activists who assisted with our work, the many local and international
journalists who freely shared their notes and observations with our
researchers, the officials at the hospitals and centers for the displaced in
Beirut who granted us repeated access, and most important the eyewitnesses and
victims of the attacks documented in this report, who agreed to be interviewed
at great length.

[4] Such a move is
consistent with the obligation of States under Common Article 1 to the Geneva
Conventions to "respect and ensure respect" for international humanitarian law,
which confers a responsibility on third-party states to avoid action that would
assist in violations by the parties to a conflict. States party to the Geneva
Conventions agreed to make respect for international humanitarian law one of
the fundamental criteria on which arms transfer decisions are assessed at the
International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in 2003. A number of
governments, including those that adhere to the European Union Code of Conduct
on Arms Exports, have instruments in place to implement these commitments. The UK, along with
other countries, supports the extension of the EU Code to cover arms transit
and also changes to make the code binding. It should act accordingly as a
matter of policy.

[69]
"Secretary-General Shocked by Coordinated Israeli Attack on United Nations
Observer Post in Lebanon,
Which Killed Two Peacekeepers," United Nations Department of Public Information
press release, July 25, 2006.The death
toll was later raised to four.

[72]
Warren Hoge, "U.N. Says it Protested to Israel for Six Hours During Attack the
Killed 4 Observers in Lebanon," New York
Times, July 27, 2006, and "Annan would have preferred joint probe with Israel into attack on UN post
letter," U.N Press Center, July 31, 2006.

[78]
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Article 8(2)(b)(iii).

[79]On July 20, UNIFIL reported that Hezbollah had fired from
the immediate vicinity of U.N. positions in Naqura
and Marun al-Ras, which prompted an IDF response.(UNIFIL press release, July 20, 2006.)On July 25, Hezbollah fired from the vicinity
of four U.N. positions at `Alma ash Sha`ab, Tebnine, Brashit, and At
Tiri.(UNIFIL press release, July 26, 2006.)

[111]
First Geneva Convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded
and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field" ; Second Geneva Convention "for the
Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed
Forces at Sea" Third Geneva Convention "relative to the Treatment of Prisoners
of War";Fourth Geneva Convention "relative
to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War."